


Total eclipse

by Sa_kun



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Assault, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Other, Panic Attacks, Recovery, Stiles gets a dog, Wolf Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 09:31:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1079362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sa_kun/pseuds/Sa_kun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles didn't know about werewolves until he was kidnapped by hunters and trapped in a room where drugged out werewolves got shoved in, one after the other. Derek was the last one, and it took Stiles a long time before he could accept that he owed their breakout in part to Derek, mostly because up until Derek, he didn't know werewolves could be, well, <i>human</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't the first TW fic I've ever written, but it's the first one to get posted for various reasons. It was one of my experiments during this year's NaNo.
> 
> This fic starts out pretty dark. While there are no graphic descriptions of _anything_ , it's up to the reader's discretion to fill in the blanks. Go see the end notes for a little more details if you need, but there's a reason I kept it vague in the fic (i.e. I didn't want graphic descriptions of any kind in my fic because I didn't want to write them out).
> 
> This story is complete, I just need some time to go over the chapters before I post it all.

_“Okay,” Stiles said, staring at his hands. “That was stupid.”_

_“You think?”_

_“Shut up.”_

\--

So, first things first: Stiles was out doing the weekly grocery shopping, totally minding his own business. Maybe he was listening to something on his phone, headphones plugged in, but it wasn’t like it was music or even as if it was particularly loud, you know? It was a distraction technique, maybe, but mostly he just liked listening to books when he wasn’t sitting still, something that could dsit5ract him enough to help him keep focused on the task at hand.

Anyway, at some point between leaving the store and heading for the car, someone jumped him and he blacked out. That was it. He didn’t see anyone, didn’t hear anything, hadn’t even gotten in trouble in over a week.

It didn’t seem to matter, because he still woke up with a splitting headache and a huge bruise on his head in a windowless room without his phone. There was just him. Him, and a huge-ass TV monitor on the wall.

And the camera next to the monitor, showing to everybody that cared to look exactly how Stiles looked sprawled on the floor.

Stiles felt like it was totally okay if he panicked now.

\--

Maybe that was the scary part – that someone was showing him a live video-feed of what was going on in the room. Actually, it was more what whatever sick son of a bitch that had knocked him out was planning on doing that was scaring him terrified.

Stiles had kind of entered into the most intense panic attack he’d had in years and he wasn’t sure he’d come out of it yet. Breathing was a bitch and there were black spots everywhere. He was cold and shaking, everything was aching and if fucking hurt to breathe.

\--

The room was empty. Like, the walls were bare, the floor was concrete and cold and Stiles was getting bruises all over from it. There wasn’t a light bulb and the only light he had was coming from the TV and outside the door.

His eyes were getting used to the gloom and the unnatural glare.

\--

Time passed.

A lot of time, because he could see how long the camera had been recording.

It was getting to the point where turning the hours and minutes into days was starting to become difficult. He got food every eighth hour, pushed in through a slot at the bottom of the door, and there was a toilet behind a partial wall with a sink, but that was it.

He didn’t have blanket or a bed and the room got fucking freezing when the sun set.

\--

He tried not eating for fifty-six hours because his dad was a cop and Stiles had an over active imagination. He knew stuff, had read about toxins and poison and not trusting your kidnappers and Stockholm’s Syndrome.

When his stomach started cramping, started hurting so bad that Stiles could swear he was dying, when his vision turned spotty and blurry from something other than panic, that’s when he finally started eating.

\--

Maybe the food was bad or maybe Stiles ate too much after not eating anything for a while, because he threw up for three hours.

He still ate the next meal they pushed into his room.

\--

The display read 118h when the door opened and someone else was tossed into the room. From outside, Stiles could hear gruff voices and laughter.

“Hey! Hey—” Stiles called, rushing for the door.

“Shut it, bitch,” the guy growled, punching him in the face before slamming the door shut. “Enjoy your cellmate. I’m sure he’s gonna take real good care of you.”

Maybe Stiles would’ve had a clever comeback if the force of the idiot’s punch hadn’t knocked him across the floor and into a wall.

It turned out that, yeah, there were lights in the room. They’d just never been turned on before, and they were bright. _Way_ bright.

Bright enough that Stiles could see the guy the asshole kidnappers had just tossed into the room was built like a brick house, was glaring and heaving breaths and coming right at him. The guy had fangs and glowing eyes and Stiles screamed, okay, he screamed until his throat hurt and his voice gave out and he fucking wished they’d never turned the lights on, that there wasn’t a stupid camera and a fucking TV, because every time he tried to turn away, to not look, the TV made it fucking impossible. And, okay, he could’ve shut his eyes except the guy put claws and fangs against his throat whenever he did.

So Stiles screamed, kept his eyes open, pushed and shoved and kicked, and died a little inside.

\--

Stiles must have passed out, because when he woke up he was alone again, there was a change of clothes by the door, bloodstains on the floor and he was cold.

The sink was tiny, barely big enough that he could wash his hands in it, but he didn’t stop scrubbing at himself until he felt clean, until every scrape and bruise on his body was stinging and bright red.

Stiles smashed the TV after he’d dressed. Closed his hand, formed a fist just like Dad had shown him years ago and slammed it into the screen. It broke, cracks running across the screen from the impact of his fist, the picture distorted enough that he couldn’t clearly see what it was showing anymore.

The corner with the time-stamp survived, showing 138h.

\--

The guy was the first one, but he wasn’t the last. Sometimes Stiles had time to heal a little, to not feel like he’d been beaten and dragged across concrete and hurled through walls. Sometimes he was still bleeding and cracked open, and that was worse, so much worse, because these freaks – the monsters, whatever they were – bit and clawed harder to cover up—

\--

Stiles stopped counting hours. It was easier if he didn’t try to figure out how long—

Sometimes, he didn’t move, curled up in a corner, never taking his eyes off the door.

\--

One time, the door was open long enough for Stiles to see them shoot the monster of the week in the head.

\--

The day everything changed was when they threw in a guy who was growling exactly like all the others had, except— This one was struggling and fighting, slamming a fist hard enough into a kidnappers face that Stiles could hear the bone break clear as day, swiping claws down another’s side.

Stiles didn’t move, exactly, sitting in his corner with his back against the wall and his knees against his chest. If he sat under the camera, then he couldn’t see the monitor. For a second he almost hoped, almost thought this guy wasn’t like the rest. Maybe he’d hurt enough of the sick bastards who put him here that Stiles could get out, could make a run for it, maybe—

The door slamming shut was like a gunshot, the sound of it making Stiles flinch.

This guy, when he finally turned to glare at Stiles, he didn’t have blue or yellow eyes. His were blazing red and it scared Stiles shitless. He wasn’t bigger than the others, wasn’t bulkier or uglier. He just had red eyes and a lot more fangs, a lot longer and sharper looking claws.

Worst of all, Stiles decided, was how his face was human. How he didn’t look like a monster the way the others had, how he didn’t have pointed ears or a ridged brow or weird facial hair. He cocked his head to the side, frowning hard as he stared at Stiles and the room.

“Who are you?”

Stiles just stared. He honestly wasn’t sure if he could still speak, if he could talk without screaming.

The guy scowled, slammed a hand against the door hard enough that the metal buckled under the pressure but didn’t otherwise move. The door didn’t even break, just folded under the pressure but remained in one piece. Stiles kind of hated the door a lot right then.

Stiles wasn’t sure how long he sat in his corner, watching every move the stranger made. It was long enough for the plate of food to be shoved through the hatch in the door, for him to shrink back when the guy offered it to him, for him to kick and shove and scream.

The guy recoiled back as if Stiles could actually hurt him, the plate of food clattering to the floor. Stiles watched as he looked the room over again, as his eyes lingered on the dark spots of blood Stiles couldn’t wash away, as his nostrils flared and his eyes flashed even brighter red.

“I’ll kill them,” he said. “I’ll kill them all.”

Stiles wasn’t sure if he was talking about the monsters outside or the ones that had been in here. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know, if it even mattered, so he hugged his knees closer and didn’t say anything.

\--

Stiles watched the stranger a lot. Stared as he paced and checked the room out, as he inspected the toilet area, and grew antsy and panicked every time the guy disappeared behind the wall for too long. The guy always came back the second Stiles started to get worked up, looked at him with kind and upset eyes and a frowning mouth.

His eyes hadn’t been red for a long time, not since he’d taken a deep breath and rolled his shoulders after he’d almost punched the door in the second time.

Stiles debated on calling him Jekyll or Hyde, but it didn’t fit and Stiles didn’t like the implications of the names, the lack of choice and control in the change. This guy, he seemed to be able to push the monster back, seemed to be able to act human.

Stiles didn’t know what that made him, if it meant something good or bad.

\--

He settled on Banner, in the end, because he’d liked Whedon’s version of the Hulk, liked how he’d written him.

By the door, Banner cocked his head to the side and listened to something happening on the outside.

\--

The closest Banner came was when he squinted at the camera and monitor contraption. Stiles shrank back, but the guy didn’t even glance at him.

“Just video?”

Stiles shrugged. The sound wasn’t on in here, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t turned on somewhere else, that the video didn’t turn up on screens that weren’t in this room.

“How long—”

Stiles slammed a fist into the floor, then pointed at the corner of the monitor that showed the hours.

“Oh.” Banner’s smirk was slow and subtle. “Nice handiwork,” he said.

Stiles shrugged. His fists still hurt after the last hit.

\--

“You have to move,” Banner said at one point.

Stiles just glared. “You can’t— Can you even feel your legs?”

Stiles couldn’t feel much of anything anymore. Not just because he hadn’t moved since— The concrete floor was hard, hard and cold, and his trousers were thin and made of cotton and polyester.

“I can— I can stand by the toilet, if—”

Stiles shook his head.

Not seeing, not knowing where Banner was… That was worse. Stiles stared and he didn’t move for a long time, but when he finally did, he started by swallowing and uncurling his fingers.

\--

The next time the food came through, Stiles watched as Banner carefully divided it on the plate, ate his part, then put it down and slid it as far as he could reach across the floor toward Stiles before backing up to the opposite corner of the room.

Stiles still glared, still grumbled under his breath, still moved slower than a glacier and he never stopped looking at Banner to make sure he didn’t move.

“Do you know what I am?” Banner asked, after Stiles had slowly eaten his half of the food. “What— What they were?”

Stiles shook his head.

Banner clenched his jaw, glared at the door. “Those people out there are hunters. They’ve made a point of killing as many of my kind as possible the last few centuries. They call us monsters and kill our children in their sleep.” Banner stared at Stiles. “They say we’re evil and corrupted, but we’re not the ones kidnapping humans and throwing drugged out werewolves—” Stiles flinched and Banner stopped talking. “Sorry,” he ground out.

Stiles just looked away.

“I’m a werewolf. I was born one; most of my family were. We didn’t hurt anyone, didn’t do anything to draw attention. I’m the only one left,” Banner said. “Those people out there are the worst monsters of them all. Some of them need a reason to kill a werewolf and when they can’t find one, they invent one.”

\--

“The others—” Stiles flinched, but Banner still asked— “Their eyes, were they red, like mine?”

Stiles shook his head, looking away.

“I’m an alpha,” he said. “That’s why I have red eyes. I’m stronger. I think that’s why the drug didn’t work.”

Stiles made an abrupt motion, glaring and showing his teeth at Banner. He didn’t want to talk about—

Banner seemed to understand, or if he didn’t, then he was at least humouring Stiles.

“When I was a kid my mom was the alpha,” he said instead. “My sister and I would fight, would bare our teeth to each other. It’s a dominance thing in a wolf pack so we could do it to each other, but if we did it to Mom?” Banner almost smiled. “She’d make us roll over and show our bellies to her. We hated it, but she just laughed and ruffled our hair, which we hated even more. She’s dead,” Banner said, quieter. “I’d give everything to have her ruffle my hair one more time.”

\--

Banner wasn’t talkative, but sometimes when the silence dragged on and Stiles started to twitch, he’d say something. Stiles wasn’t sure if he hated the werewolf trivia or not, but he still listened and sucked it up like a sponge.

“We don’t mate for life,” or “We don’t transform into wolves. Mom could, but it’s not— Not everyone can,” or “We don’t change into bloodthirsty killers on the full moon if we learn control,” or “My uncle was a vegetarian.”

\--

“Wolfsbane is poisonous to us,” Banner said at one point. “It can kill us if we get it into our blood system. The drug—”

Stiles tensed, made an abrupt motion that indicated: “Shut the fuck up!”

Banner stopped talking and looked away.

\--

The room grew colder, darker. The food portions became smaller, until it was hard dividing it up. Banner frowned, looked at the screen, but didn’t say anything about how long he’d been in here, about the fact that he was still alive and that he hadn’t—

They were both still alive. Stiles doubted that was how the freaks outside had planned it.

\--

One time, the food got pushed in only for Banner to shove it right back out before whoever was outside had time to close the hatch. Stiles made a noise, pained and hungry, because they’d only been given so little last time and it hadn’t—

Stiles remembered the first fifty-six hours when he hadn’t eaten because he hadn’t trusted the food and he’d still thought he’d be rescued any minute now, still believed. It wasn’t that heD given up hope now, bt it had been so long.

“Wolfsbane,” Banner said, and then Stiles blacked out because Banner stalked over to him, looming and hulking and Stiles just—

Blacking out was easy, was safe and quiet and no one could hurt him if he wasn’t there.

\--

Stiles came to slowly, to a soft voice and hands in his. He tensed when he recognised it, panicked, because it was Banner and he was in _Stiles’ corner_ and he’d always stayed on his side of the room—

“Hey, shh,” Banner said. “Breathe. We need to— I need to—”

Stiles shook, kicked out with his legs and clawed down Banner’s face with his fingers, but that was so much worse because the scratches just healed right back up almost immediately.

“Hey!” Banner snapped, but he didn’t reach out to touch Stiles again; he looked sad and apologetic as he moved back. “Listen, listen, I need to know, if— Can you run? If I—” Banner looked at the camera, behind him at the door. “Can you run?”

Stiles was still breathing hard, still shaking, and he was so cold and Banner was emitting so much heat that Stiles almost wanted him to sit closer so he didn’t have to be cold anymore.

He shook his head.

It had been— Long. It had been long, since Banner came and since the one before was killed. It had been a long time, but…

Stiles rolled up his sleeves, hands unsteady and fumbly, fingers numb and not working right. Banner hissed, went still, and he didn’t move to help or touch. There were scabs of slowly healing claw marks running down Stiles’ arms and that wasn’t even the worst of it.

Banner looked away, swallowed loudly enough that Stiles could hear it. He said, “I’ll kill them. I’ll fucking gut them alive.”

“They’re already dead,” Stiles whispered.

Banner maybe startled, maybe even smiled a little. “I wasn’t talking about them.”

Stiles looked away. It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought the same, that he’d never fantasised about killing them, about using knives and guns—

“The bite of an alpha can turn you,” Banner said, and Stiles shook his head, eyes wide and he couldn’t breathe—

“Okay, okay,” Banner said, voice low. “I just. I thought you should know.”

Stiles nodded.

Banner bit his lip, shifted a little closer. He held out a hand, all fingers curled into his palm except for one. Stiles watched, wide-eyed, as it touched feather-soft on the back of his hand. “I didn’t you know you were in this much pain,” he said. “I mean, I could smell that you were— That you weren’t fine, but I couldn’t smell it was this bad.”

Slowly, the spot Banner was touching stopped hurting. Stiles couldn’t look away, watched in horrified fascination as black tendrils slowly snaked up Banner’s finger, over his hand, all the way to his arm. The numbness spread a little, stopped the bone-deep ache in Stiles hand that he hadn’t even noticed until it was gone.

“It’s limited to how much I touch you,” Banner said. “To the general area. I can draw the pain from you, but it’s still there. It’s not healing.”

Stiles nodded.

“Where— Do you want me to—?”

Stiles bit his lip, frowned. He hurt, all of him was a big bruise, a big scrape. If he sat still, it wasn’t as bad, but he had to move sometimes, had to use to toilet. He only did it when Banner wasn’t looking, when he pretended to be asleep for Stiles’ benefit.

Stiles nodded. It broke something inside of him to reach out for Banner’s hand, to place it on his shoulder, almost by his neck.

“It’s has to be skin,” Banner said. Stiles flinched. “I’m sorry it’s not—”

Stiles moved back, pulled at the zipper of the fleece vest. He had a shirt under it, flannel and buttoned to the top with the collar turned up. Banner hissed, because, yeah. There was blood, old and dried.

“If I bit you, you’d heal,” Banner said. Stiles snarled silently, violently shaking his head. “I won’t, I know. I just…”

Stiles nodded.

“Your back is worse,” Banner said when he put a hand on Stiles’ exposed collarbone.

Stiles snapped his teeth.

“Yeah,” Banner said. “I know.”

Stiles stared at Banner’s arms, at the way the pain just melted away from him and into Banner.

“I think they’ll come running if I break the camera.” Banner smirked. “Or if they think I bite you. Two werewolves in a pack is a lot stronger than the packless omegas they’ve been rounding up.”

Stiles frowned. “You—?”

Banner shook his head. “They’re dead.”

“Oh.”

Banner looked away. “You have a nice voice,” he said. “It’s good to hear it.”

Stiles didn’t exactly smile, but he did something with his mouth that felt foreign and weird. “Stiles,” he said.

Banner frowned. “You have what?”

Stiles tapped his chest. “Stiles.”

“That’s not a name.”

Stiles glared. Banner glared back. “It’s not,” he muttered, then moved one of his hands. Stiles tensed, but Banner was careful, slow, and Stiles really didn’t want to know how Banner knew that there’d be a bite on the back of his neck, that’d it be bad enough to hurt the most because every time—

They went for the neck. All of them, they went for the neck.

Stiles hissed and glared.

“Sorry,” Banner muttered. “It doesn’t smell good,” he said. Stiles just nodded, because it felt sick, it throbbed with his heartbeat and felt hot and achy. He tried not to think about it, ignored it until he could almost forget about it entirely.

\--

At some point, Banner said, “We— I could lick you. I don’t know if— Mom used to do it when we were kids and got hurt. It helped, but I don’t know if it worked because we were all werewolves.”

“Stiles,” Stiles said, turning his head so he could glare at Banner.

Banner raised an eyebrow. “What?”

Stiles rolled his eyes, then slammed a fist into Banner’s chest. “ _Stiles_.”

Banner glared and looked away, but Stiles didn’t miss the way that Banner’s ears turned red. He didn’t want Banner to think he’d missed it, either, so he flicked one with his fingers. They were still sitting close, Banner was still leeching pain but other than the neck, he only touched where Stiles said he could touch, only for as long as Stiles was okay with.

“Derek,” Banner said. “Sorry.”

Stiles hummed, shivering. “Derek.”

“Yes.”

“Warm?”

“You have a fever,” Derek said, looking worried.

Stiles just nodded; he knew he wasn’t doing well, that there were infections running through his system that he couldn’t do much about.

“Can I try?”

Stiles frowned, but eventually he held up his hand, palm up, and Derek took it. It was scratched up pretty bad, covered in scabs, and Derek’s saliva stung, his tongue hard and rough and wet—

Stiles didn’t know he was making a high pitched noise of pure terror until Derek let go, saying his name over and over, until Stiles remembered where he was, that it was Derek, not a monster, not a freak, just Derek.

\--

Derek’s magic saliva worked.

A little, anyway.

Stiles’ palm felt less stiff, the skin turning more pink than red as the scabs fell off when he could help but scratch because _Derek’s tongue_ had been on his skin and he hated that it had been on his skin. He showed Derek, and Derek nodded.

“Do you want to try somewhere else?”

Stiles thought about it, frowning. On the one hand, it sort of worked, but on the other it meant Derek touching, Derek using his mouth and his hands _on Stiles_ and Stiles really didn’t want that, didn’t like the idea of anyone touching him ever again.

\--

Eventually, when Stiles stomach rumbled and started to clench because they still hadn’t been fed again after the poisoned—

Eventually, Stiles lowered his left leg. Derek shifted and looked at him, but Stiles ignored him. If they were going to run, going to try to escape… Stiles wet his lips and swallowed, then started tugging on the loose material of the trousers. His ankle was swollen, hobbled, a mess of bruises and scabs and bites and claws—

“Shh,” Derek said. “Look at me, Stiles, come on. Just breathe, okay?” Stiles nodded, fixing his eyes on Derek’s instead. “You tried to run?”

Stiles nodded. He always tried to run, always tried to get away, but they were always _more_ – stronger, faster; they were monsters and Stiles was just human, trapped in a room with no way out.

“A wolf chases,” Derek said. “It’s instinct. We can’t help— Yeah, no, we can always help it because we’re more than baser animal instincts. We’re human, too. Just because we’re predators doesn’t mean we have to be killers.” Stiles didn’t say anything; he rarely did, even now. “Kick me in the face, if… Just kick me, okay?” Derek said. “It’ll make you feel better.”

Stiles just huffed and nodded at his other leg.

Derek seemed to get it, because he smiled and said, “So knee me someplace it’ll really hurt.”

\--

Stiles ended up kneeing Derek in the face so bad it broke his nose.

Twice.


	2. Chapter 2

Derek only asked if Stiles could stand once and the glare he sent back apparently spoke volumes because Derek didn’t ask again.

It wasn’t like Stiles hadn’t got up before, hadn’t carefully edged around the room to use the toilet or drink water when he couldn’t deny himself any longer. Granted, he’d moved slow, had limped and hobbled and used the wall as a crutch.

Derek hadn’t seen that, though, because he’d been pretending to be asleep for Stiles’ benefit.

\--

Derek spent most of his time by the door now. Stiles thought it was because he could hear things, all sorts of things that Stiles couldn’t – the same way he could smell that Stiles was hurt, that there’d been other monsters – other werewolves – in there.

The same way he’d known the food was poisoned.

Maybe the food hadn’t been poisoned, though, maybe it was all a lie to get Stiles to trust him, to get Stiles to open up and show his underbelly or something. Maybe Derek was one of them – one of the freaks from outside – trying to get Stiles to—

Stiles knew about Stockholm’s Syndrome and hostage situations and—

“Stiles?” Derek looked worried, was frowning. “Your heart’s racing.”

“I’m not stupid,” Stiles said.

“Okay?”

“I don’t trust you.”

Derek just nodded. He didn’t look surprised or hurt. He said, “I don’t trust anyone. You shouldn’t— If you don’t look out for yourself and protect your interests, then who will?”

 _Dad_ , Stiles wanted to say. _Dad_ _always protects me and makes sure I’m safe_ , but Dad wasn’t here and Stiles was alone with a man who could turn into a monster.

\--

When Stiles finally stood up, leaning heavily against the wall, his stomach was cramping worse than it had the last time he’d gone without food. It probably had something to do with the extensive bruising covering most of his body, with the cuts and scrapes and the way the bite on the back of his neck wasn’t healing. Derek looked at him, let his eyes go red and his nostrils flare, then he nodded.

“Stand by the door,” he said.

Stiles shook his head, rolling his eyes. He mimed a gun and Derek grimaced.

“You don’t bring guns to a clawfight,” Derek muttered as he stalked past Stiles to the camera, sounding childish peeved and annoyed. “I don’t know if this will work.”

Stiles just nodded.

“Okay. If I get shot and there’s wolfsbane in the bullets, save one for me. I’ll need it to heal.”

Stiles nodded again, then watched as Derek closed his eyes, as he rolled his shoulders back and took a deep breath, then another, before just relaxing and letting go. The punch, when it finally came, shocked Stiles enough that he almost went to that quiet place in his mind where nothing existed and he could be free, but Derek snapped his fingers in Stiles’ face. “Stiles?”

Stiles wet his lips, looked away and nodded.

“Stay behind me.”

Stiles glared.

“Look, I know you don’t— I know how you feel about, about my kind, but—” Derek shook his head. “Stay behind me. Bullets won’t kill me.”

“Wolfsbane.”

Derek shrugged. “It has to reach the heart. Takes a while. It’s painful, but it won’t kill me at once.”

\--

Stiles wondered why they hadn’t talked more about what they were going to do if it worked, if Derek destroying the camera would really send the freaks outside running. Stiles didn’t believe it’d work, not really, but even he could hear the raised voices from outside now, the running feet. Derek was pacing, was eyeing the door as if he thought he could actually break it down with his bare hands.

Maybe he could; he was a lot stronger than he appeared. He looked sick, though, was deathly pale and livid.

“What?”

Derek shook his head. “They’re betting between me destroying the camera so I could kill you in peace or because I’m a territorial alpha who doesn’t like to share,” he grit out.

Stiles recoiled back.

“I’ll get you a gun.”

Stiles smiled. It felt strange, alien, but if he had a gun, then he could—

Yeah, a gun sounded lovely.

“I’m gonna get my claws out.”

Stiles nodded, then didn’t look away as Derek flexed his hands and popped his claws. He should’ve called him Wolverine, not Banner.

“What?”

Stiles blinked, frowning.

“You called me _Banner_?”

Stiles shrugged. Maybe the fact that he was talking without being aware of it was a good thing, but it still felt like it wasn’t, because yeah, he’d done it before, but— He’d done it before.

“You were kind,” Stiles eventually said.

“A kind monster.”

Stiles nodded. “Control,” he said.

“You don’t have to be— You can be a monster without claws and fangs,” Derek said.

“I know.”

“Good,” Derek said.

\--

When the door opened, nothing happened. Stiles was almost disappointed.

\--

Actually, the hatch opened first and a smoke grenade was rolled in. It made Stiles cough and choke and his eyes tear up, but Derek threw up black goo.

It wasn’t the smartest thing to do, probably, because if it made Derek expel something black and toxic, then Stiles probably shouldn’t pick it up with his bare hands. It wasn’t like he was that fast on his feet, either, so he held on to it for way too long before he reached the toilet, dropped it in and closed the lid, then flushed and flushed until the smoke disappeared and Stiles could breathe again.

Derek had his hands under the faucet, was splashing water over his face. Stiles was vaguely aware of the fact that his hands were burning, tingling and hot, a little bit numb.

“Okay,” Stiles said, staring at his hands. “That was stupid.”

“You think?”

“Shut up.”

Derek stepped back from the sink. “Wash your hands; you stink of wolfsbane. Hurry.”

Stiles nodded, made sure to stand as far from Derek as possible, then rinsed and scrubbed at his hands until they were red and achy from the cold water, until Derek reached out and turned the water off and Stiles flinched at the proximity.

“They’re coming,” Derek said, looking at Stiles, meeting his fidgety gaze.

“Okay.”

“Stay behind me.”

Stiles nodded, then the door flew open and it was everything he could do to keep going, to stay behind Derek and to not freak out, to not black out and lose time.

Derek took out the first two freaks, grabbing them by their throats and slamming their heads together. Stiles didn’t think he’d ever forget the wet sound, how bones crushed and how loud it was. Derek looked at Stiles, face completely human. “Take their guns.”

Stiles nodded, crouched down despite protesting knees and picked up the guns, the one automatic rifle. Derek helped, rooting out spare ammo and a chocolate bar he wrinkled his nose at. Stiles snatched it up and gobbled it down in no time.

“That’s disgusting,” Derek said. Stiles just rolled his eyes and didn’t ask if Derek couldn’t eat chocolate because he was allergic, if wolves were like dogs, or if it was because he just didn’t like it. But then Derek cocked his head to the side, glared out at the long corridor ahead of them. “I can hear five heartbeats.”

Stiles nodded.

“Stay behind me. Shoot anything that moves. Try to miss me.”

\--

Stiles shoot anything that moved, everything that twitched and tried to skulk in the shadows.

Derek didn’t stop him.

\--

The room Stiles had been kept in was in the back of a long building. There were more rooms, rooms like Stiles’ except worse. Most of them were empty, had Derek wrinkling his nose. Some had—

Stiles didn’t call them people, grotesque remains of what had been. Maybe they’d been human, maybe not, but in death they were ugly and distorted.

They found a room filled with computers and monitors, with papers and documents and codes. Derek pilfered through it, frown deepening. Stiles only caught glances, numbers that looked like bank accounts and coordinates, addresses and names. He never saw his own, but there was a file with Derek’s name, a picture of him with his eyes closed.

“We need to destroy this,” Derek said. Stiles raised an eyebrow. Derek shook his head, scowling at the stack of papers in front of him. “They’ve been tracking my kind, experimenting. I don’t know…”

Stiles took the papers and started building a pile with everything flammable in the room. It didn’t take Derek long to start helping out, to tear filing cabinets apart and empty them.

After, when the room was burning and thick with smoke, Derek said, “They marked the files with ‘mission accomplished’ when they’d killed everyone in it.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

\--

“Why me?”

“Did you know— Were you involved?”

Stiles frowned.

“Did you do anything supernatural? Witchcraft? Spellwork? Anything?”

Stiles shook his head. After a while, he said, “I was grocery shopping.”

“Oh.” Derek growled, tense again. “There are more hunters in front of us. Eight.”

\--

The hunters weren’t expecting them. The building must’ve been large enough to mask and distort sounds, to cover up the smell of the acrid smoke curling around Derek and him, to hide the sounds of screaming and gunshots they left behind them. The freaks were sitting around a large table, but whatever they were talking about stopped with a bullet to the head.

Derek roared, Stiles fired his gun over and over, and he didn’t stop until Derek put a hand on the gun, until he looked Stiles in the eye and said, “It’s over. They’re dead, Stiles.”

“No, no,” Stiles hissed. “It won’t ever be over! They stole me and took my life, Derek! They ruined—”

“They won’t have won until you let them,” Derek snapped. “Look, Stiles—”

“No, you look. You don’t know—”

“My family burned to death because I was stupid and gullible enough to think a beautiful older woman wanted to be with me. She was a hunter and she needed a way in. _I_ was her way in. I could’ve let the knowledge of what I’d done cripple me, but I didn’t: I get up _every day_ and I fight. I have to or it won’t mean anything.”

“Boohoo,” Stiles said. “So fucking sorry for your loss, Derek, but I won’t ever be okay again. I won’t magically wake up and be all fixed.”

“I didn’t—”

Stiles turned around and made for the door.

“Stiles!”

“Are there more?”

Derek clenched his teeth and shut up. He went back to taking point, to leading the way out, nose first and ears primed.

\--

They didn’t find a single phone, every pocket they searched empty. It was frankly more than a bit disturbing that none of them had had a phone, even an old model with buttons instead of a fancy screen.

Stiles didn’t know where he was and there wasn’t anyone he could call to help him because there wasn’t anything to use. Maybe there’d been internet in the room they set on fire, but Stiles hadn’t thought to check.

\--

When they finally made it outside, the sun blinded Stiles for several minutes. He might have cried; he wasn’t sure, but the sun felt so fucking good on his skin, warming him from the outside in. Derek cocked his head, looked at a spot behind one of the cars – _cars!_ – then jumped over it. Stiles didn’t see anything, but he heard the slick, wet sound of a throat being torn open.

“No keys,” Derek said when Stiles rounded the truck.

“I can,” Stiles said. “Dad— My dad’s a cop. He told me things.”

“Yeah?” Stiles nodded. “Do you fell up to driving?”

Stiles looked at his hands, flexed his fingers. He’d been sore before, but after the gun his palms felt scraped raw, old cuts close to being re-opened despite Derek’s magical saliva. The soles of his feet were bruised and sore. He was tired, but not _that_ tired and, yeah.

It’d be easier if Derek drove, if Stiles could spend his time watching Derek, making sure he wasn’t about to do something stupid.

\--

Derek went back inside while Stiles stayed outside. He contemplated running, considered getting in a car and just driving off. It could still be a trap, still be a way for Derek to sway Stiles into trusting him, except…

Derek had gone inside to raid the supply room for whatever food there was, to find blankets and bandages, to—

He had gone inside to help Stiles. Stiles couldn’t turn his back on that.

\--

Derek came back out with two blankets, a taser he handed to Stiles along with the words, “Electricity can keep us from changing,” two power bars and a bottle of water.

Stiles frowned, but he gobbled down the food as Derek did the same.

“No food?”

Derek looked almost embarrassed. “I may have killed the chef in his soup,” he said.

\--

The first sign they saw on the road read “Welcome to Illinois,” and Stiles wondered how long he’d been unconscious that first time before he woke up in the cell.

\--

They didn’t have any money, they were driving a stolen car and he was five states away from home. Derek drove for an hour without saying a word, hands clenched on the wheel and eyes locked on the road.

“Where am I going?” Derek asked when they passed the second gas station.

“California.”

Derek blinked. “Me, too.”

\--

The first time Derek stopped the car, Stiles almost freaked out. It was dark, Derek’s eyes flashed every time a car went past and Stiles couldn’t sleep, couldn’t look away in case—

Just in case. So he stared, eyes fixed on Derek, and then the car stopped.

“I have to rest,” Derek said. “I can’t— My eyes.”

Stiles eyed the backseat, then glared at Derek. Derek looked pained, had tired circles under his eyes and that slow, stubborn blink to his eyelids that you only really got when you were way past your bedtime. “I’m not going back there,” Derek said.

Stiles just glared harder.

“Look, if you don’t fit, _I_ don’t fit.”

Derek may have been right, but Stiles wasn’t about to acknowledge that. Instead, he wrapped one of the blankets he’d grabbed from— He wrapped the blanket around himself, leaned the seat back a little, then just kept his eyes on Derek.

Derek didn’t outright show how uncomfortable he was with Stiles constantly watching – hadn’t in the room, wasn’t right now as he turned the seat down as far as possible, grabbed the other blanket and pulled it around him.

Stiles counted his breaths, watched the steady rise and fall of his chest, and then Derek was asleep, just like that.

\--

Stiles nodded off a couple of times, kept jerking himself awake to keep an eye on Derek just in case.

It didn’t matter that Derek’d never done anything, that he’d helped getting them out. It didn’t matter that Stiles knew that Derek wasn’t a monster, that he knew everything that defined a monster as a monster and that Derek had none of the traits.

It didn’t matter, because the stubborn voice in the back of Stiles head that was all survivor was stuck firmly on the latter kneejerk reaction of fight or flight.

\--

Derek stole food for them.

It turned out super-senses were a great asset in house burgling.

\--

It took days, days and an eternity before they crossed the state line into California. Stiles hadn’t slept in forever, in what was probably too long, and he was starting to feel sick, paranoid. He saw things, black shapes in weird forms out of the corner of his eye, and he was twitchy, restless.

“You can sleep,” Derek said.

Stiles shook his head.

“I guarantee you’ll snap awake the second I stop this car.”

That was probably true, but Stiles couldn’t. Couldn’t relax when he was so close, couldn’t disconnect from the need to be hyper-vigilant to being mostly safe. Or at least to being far away from the room, the monsters and the freaks.

\--

Stiles thought he fell asleep for a little while, because the light outside disappeared between one blink and the next.

Then he saw the Beacon Hills sign and he didn’t even have to do anything before Derek pulled over. Stiles pushed the door open and threw up.

“I grew up here,” Derek said.

“Derek _Hale_ ,” Stiles said.

“Oh.” There was a pause. “You’re from here, too?”

“Stilinski.”

Derek was quiet a little longer this time, then he said, “ _Sheriff_ Stilinski?” Stiles nodded. “He’s been looking for you.”

“He’s my dad.”

Derek handed him a water bottle and Stiles rinsed his mouth out, then guzzled some flat coke just to get rid of the taste. It was still several minutes more before Stiles felt ready, felt that he could close the door and let Derek drive again.

\--

From outside, the house didn’t look at all different. The door was the same, the windows still needed washing and Stiles had promised to do it the day—

He’d do it tomorrow.

\--

Stiles didn’t knock on the door, he banged. He pounded his fists against the wood until the door opened and Dad—

Dad looked old, looked tired and wan and pale, his eyes were red and Stiles swore he was never going anywhere ever again. He thought he was crying, but mostly he couldn’t relax because for the first time in so long he was being touched by someone who wasn’t— Dad was hugging him and Stiles didn’t know if that was okay or not, so he pulled back.

“Stiles…” Dad looked at him, just looked, then he ran his hands over Stiles’ head, touched his face and his shoulders. “Oh my god, Stiles. Where have you been?”

Stiles shook his head, twisted and turned until he could look at Derek at the same time.

“Who is— _Derek Hale_?” Dad exclaimed.

“He was— Stiles was there. When I—”

“Who took you?”

Stiles shook his head.

“Hunters,” Derek said and Stiles’ eyes went wide, so wide, because—

“Why would they— Stiles is human.”

Derek looked sick. “That was the point.”

“Stiles, son?”

Stiles couldn’t speak but it didn’t matter because Derek did it for him. “He needs to go to a hospital.”

\--

Stiles didn’t need to go to the hospital, but Dad refused to leave him be after Derek said that Stiles needed to, that he’d been hurt and sick. He didn’t say anything about how he’d been hurt and Stiles was a little grateful to Derek for that.

Dad left him alone while a doctor looked him over. She was a she, was older and soft and plump, and she was so perfectly ordinary that Stiles could’ve cried. She didn’t ask a lot of questions, but she talked about domestic abuse, about violence in the home and said there was help to be found.

Stiles shook his head and kept his eyes peeled on the door. Just in case.

Even though he wasn’t sure what the “just in case” was anymore.

\--

They gave him antibiotics and tetanus shots, gave him vaccines and tested him for so many diseases and infections that Stiles lost count of all the needles they stabbed him with.

Dad held his hand through it all. It was the only reason he didn’t freak out completely.

\--

Later, there was a police officer asking questions, an FBI agent asking more questions because Stiles and Derek weren’t the first ones to have been taken the way they’d been – there had been so many others across the county before them for months, years; who even knew how long anymore. Stiles and Derek were just the first ones who came home, who managed to escape.

Stiles didn’t tell them that there wouldn’t be any others returning, that all that was left at the place where they’d been held captive was dead bodies and blood and the choking stench of fear and desperation. He just said he didn’t remember.

Maybe it wasn’t right, but it was easier. Stiles… He needed easy, he needed something he could explain. Werewolves and hunters weren’t real, didn’t exist, and Stiles just wanted to go home. He wanted to forget, wanted to breathe free without fear or panic chasing at his heels. So he lied, and he kept quiet.

Dad knew most of it – Dad was the Sheriff. That was enough, Stiles decided, that and the fact that Derek and he had made sure that no one back at that place would hurt anyone ever again.


	3. Chapter 3

It took time: time and more patience than Stiles felt he had. He wasn’t all right; Stiles didn’t think he’d ever be all right, but he was better. It wasn’t that he could sleep the night through or that he could be in his house with the lights off – he had nightlights all over the house now, little LED-things that he plugged straight into the sockets or that were run by batteries and set on timers – but he was functioning.

He didn’t own a TV anymore. He’d wanted to sell it, but Dad wouldn’t allow it, said that he could’ve used a new one years ago, so he’d taken it and put it up in the place of the TV that Mom had picked out. Stiles didn’t go into that room anymore if he could help it.

Dad came by every other day, ostensibly to eat something with Stiles based on what time it was that completely depended on what shift Dad had at the station. Stiles cooked a lot, kept his mind busy by making his hands work. He went to therapy two times a week and seriously considered getting a pet.

Not a dog, though.

He didn’t like dogs anymore.

\--

He got a dog.

She was small and friendly, had a bit of a crest on top of her precious little puppy head, a black ear, three tiny black paws and a spotted tail.

Stiles named her Aela the Huntress and didn’t think too much about why he gave the cutest, kindest dog in all of creation a name after a fictional werewolf character from a video game he’d played when he was a teenager.

\--

The world moved on and Stiles got dragged along with it. He had flashbacks, he had bad moments, times when he couldn’t sleep and times when he refused to leave his old bedroom at Dad’s.

Aela helped. She wasn’t planned, almost the opposite of what he’d been considering getting in that she was a _dog_ , not a cat. She wasn’t a therapy dog in that sense, mostly because she didn’t have the training, but also because she had been the runt of a puppy litter – and the only survivor – at a K-9 service for police dogs, which was how Dad had found out about her in the first place. Aela wasn’t the right breed for a police dog, she was just a rescue dog one of the dogs there had adopted. Dad said that if Stiles hadn’t taken her in, then, well. Dad didn’t actually spell out what would’ve happened otherwise, just that the training facility didn’t have too much room for dogs that weren’t going to police stations.

Aela was a puppy, was eight weeks old, a Maltipoo crossbreed.  She needed Stiles, needed him to feed her, to play with her and to walk her. Aela helped Stiles resume a more structured life, because she needed food and vaccinations and training, and she wouldn’t get that if Stiles didn’t go outside.

Stiles spent days on the computer, reading about how to train dogs and positive reinforcements, dos and don’ts, tips and tricks.

\--

For a small dog, Aela was surprisingly calm and gentle. Sure, she was a puppy, but she wasn’t— She liked to cuddle, would almost vibrate with how fast her tail was waving when Stiles had her in his lap, scratching behind her ears or giving a tummy rub.

She was six months old when Scott moved back to Beacon Hills after almost a decade away. First it was college, then he met a girl and went on to med school – or whatever kind of school you needed to go to in order to become a qualified nurse and paramedic. Stiles felt reasonably sure that it was more that he’d met a girl who was set on becoming a lawyer than anything else that had kept Scott from coming back to Beacon Hills for so long.

Stiles knew his best friend was back in town and yet…

He was afraid of seeing him, in having Scott see how—

Stiles wasn’t the same, not anymore, and he didn’t want Scott to see that, didn’t want him to know or think Stiles was weak, that he was frail and easily broken.

He didn’t want Scott to know.

\--

Dad told him once that Ms McCall, and Scott by proxy, knew that Stiles had been taken, that Dad had told her because even dads needed to confide in someone and Stiles was glad Dad had her.

Once upon a time, Stiles and Scott had the best online friendship that ever friendshipped, but then Stiles got kidnapped for— He’d been gone a long time, so many hours that Stiles didn’t like to think about the amount of time they actually transferred to. After that, Stiles had a hard time reconnecting to his old life.

\--

Stiles used to have a good job. It wasn’t necessarily one he loved or what he’d gone to school for, but it had paid well and there was always more games to buy, more comics to read. He didn’t have that job anymore for various reasons, but today he worked mornings at the local library in Beacon Hills.

The insurance money covered what the salary didn’t.

\--

Stiles’ almost settled life, the almost perfect routine he had going was disrupted when Scott came back. It wasn’t Scott’s fault, but he wasn’t the only one who moved to Beacon Hills that year.

\--

It was a Tuesday and Stiles was at work, manning the information desk. He was good at research, always had been, and he couldn’t say he didn’t enjoy this job a lot more than he had his last. It was almost at the point where he regretted not having studied library sciences at school.

Scott was back and Allison had moved with him – Stiles liked Allison, had talked to her a lot in the past over the crappy webcam Scott had on his laptop. Stiles hated her family, was terrified of her mom and there was something off about her dad that just didn’t sit right with Stiles. So what Stiles really, really didn’t like about Allison and Scott getting an apartment in town was that Allison’s parents had decided to relocate again and subsequently bought a house in Beacon Hills. Apparently they moved a lot.

Stiles didn’t like the cold smile on Allison’s father’s face.

But what he really hated was that for the first time in all the months that had gone by since Derek and he made it back to Beacon Hills, Derek came up to the desk where Stiles was working, looking awkward and pained. For all that Derek was in there what felt like every other day, they hadn’t made so much as eye contact with each other before.

“We don’t talk,” Stiles said. “It’s a mutual, silent agreement.”

“I know.” Derek shrugged. “Argent. He’s a hunter. I thought you should know. If they are here—”

“Dad hasn’t said anything about people being murdered.”

“Because they aren’t,” Derek said. “But the Argents never go anywhere if they aren’t hunting something. Last time one of them was here, my family—” He looked away. “They are not good news, Stiles. You should be careful.”

“I’m not a werewolf.”

“No,” Derek agreed. “But I’m not sure they care.”

\--

Stiles walked around feeling hyperaware for days after that, Aela a faithful companion by his side. Scott visited, did his best to reconnect after so many years spent apart. On the one hand, Scott was Scott and distance had nothing on them.

On the other hand, there were days when Stiles couldn’t stomach seeing another living being for a second longer than he had to, days where all he wanted was to lock the door behind him and hide in his bed. But then Aela would jump up on the bed, short legs struggling on the mattress as she made her way to him, licking his ears and sniffing at his neck.

Scott had a hard time assimilating the new Stiles with the old one, with accepting that Stiles couldn’t be around people the way he had, that he wasn’t as talkative or as hyperactive.

\--

Stiles began to walk Aela in populated areas that weren’t populated, places where he could see others but where he wasn’t forced to make contact.

He was paranoid and sometimes agoraphobic, but he wasn’t stupid.

\--

Derek started to make regular eye contact in the library. He never stopped to talk again and seemed content to just acknowledge Stiles from across the room. Stiles felt reasonably sure it could’ve gone on like that forever, that it would have if a dead body hadn’t turned up the day after the full moon.

\--

“Hello,” Mr Argent said, cold smile spread across his lips. “Stiles Stilinski?”

Stiles frowned, bent down and picked Aela up, then stepped around Argent. He had a hard time turning his back to anyone these days, but knowing what Argent was? That made it worse. So Stiles hurried, clutched Aela a little closer to his chest than he normally would, and did his best to ignore the feeling of Argent’s eyes boring into him from behind.

The library had a strict no pets allowed policy, but they made an exception for Stiles. Well, sort of an exception: Aela was an allergy friendly dog and he kept her in the back, in the personnel only area of the library. Stiles may only have worked between eight and two, but it was too long to leave a puppy unattended. He was glad he had her now, because he wasn’t sure he could’ve made it home without her, not with Argent—

Not with hunters invading his safety zone.

\--

That was the first time.

After that, Argent tried to stop and corner him almost every day as he either arrived at or left work.

Stiles hated it, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.

\--

There was a second body the next full moon.

\--

The day after, Stiles walked Aela near the park after his shift. It was the only reason why he saw Derek, back tense and hands clenched at his sides, and Argent. Argent was his usual charming self and Stiles wavered, at war with himself over what to do.

Derek was a werewolf; Stiles didn’t like werewolves. But hunters? He liked them even less. Hunters had taken him, had locked him up and tortured him with—

When it came down to it, Stiles hated hunters more than werewolves.

\--

“Derek?”

Derek didn’t noticeable relax, but he unclenched his hands and turned in Stiles’ direction. “Stiles,” he said.

“Are you all right?”

“Perhaps you could answer that for me, Mr Stilinski,” Argent said. Stiles frowned at him. At his feet, Aela nosed his legs. She was attuned to him, could sense the second Stiles was even close to panicking. Probably a lot like Derek, come to think of it, going by his facial expression. Stiles bent down and picked his dog up, let her lick at his chin and used her light weight in his arms, her warmth, as an anchor for the here and now.

“We should have lunch,” Stiles said to Derek. “I think I owe you one. A lunch. Can you take a break from work?”

Derek looked down at his feet, at the flowerbed he was halfway through arranging. “Yes,” he said. He was dirty, clothes stained green and brown from the ground. There wasn’t a restaurant in town that’d let him in, but Stiles was a cop’s son: he knew every joint that the Sheriff’s Department favoured depending on what they were wearing.

“Do you,” Argent started, but Derek glared at him.

“Leave me alone,” Derek snapped. “Stop following me, stop talking to me. I have nothing to say to you.”

“I disagree.”

“So does my dad,” Stiles said. “You can find him in the yellow building on Kensington. He’ll be the one with the gold star on his chest reading ‘Sheriff.’”

\--

“Oh my god,” Stiles said. “Oh my god.”

Derek didn’t say anything, didn’t touch him. Aela whined, pushing her wet nose under Stiles ear.

“What did I just do? Oh my god, what did I just do—”

“Sit down,” Derek said, so Stiles collapsed down on the sidewalk. Derek sat down next to him, not touching but still close. “You—”

“I invited the Eye of Sauron into my life,” Stiles moaned, breaths hitching in his throat. “Fuck my life. Fuck everything.”

“He’s probably more like Boromir,” Derek said. “His wife is Sauron. She calls the shots.”

“That’s not helping,” Stiles said. Aela yipped, licking at Stiles cheek. “See, Aela agrees.”

Derek looked pained, looked aggrieved and tired. “You didn’t.”

“What?” Stiles felt the shadow of a smirk cross his face “Name my dog Aela?”

“Yes,” Derek ground out.

“Yes, Derek. Yes, I did. Fuck them, fuck them all. She’s a good dog and she deserves a fucking kickass name, and you know what? Once upon a time, I would’ve named a dog something like that because I used to have the most distorted, sarcastic humour of all time. I used to not be afraid and flinch at shadows.”

\--

“Are we still not talking?”

“We’re a little talking,” Stiles said. His hands were unsteady like you wouldn’t believe, Aela at quick work cleaning whatever sauce he’d gotten on his fingers from the food up with her tongue. “I’m down to one therapy session a week. I can— I can talk. To you.”

“Me too,” Derek said. “I mean, I used to go bi-monthly, but that didn’t work.”

“I started at three times a week, then two. I’m supposed to be ready for integration into society.”

“No one’s ready for that.”

Stiles shrugged. “I hate that Argent is in town, but what’s worse than that is—”

“What?”

“My best-friend from high school just moved back with his girlfriend.”

Derek raised an eyebrow.

“Allison. Allison Argent. And I’m not the same and I’m not sure if Scott gets that because I can’t tell him— I don’t want to tell him. I don’t want anyone to know, I just want to get better. I don’t want to be afraid. I’m so sick of it.”

\--

The next day, Derek came up to the information desk.

It wasn’t that they talked, but they started to acknowledge each other, started to exchange greetings. It wasn’t small talk precisely, but it wasn’t that far off, either.

\--

The next time they met outside of the library, Stiles was talking a walk with Dad and Aela. Dusk was fast approaching and Stiles was starting to get itchy, starting to look over his shoulder. He didn’t like twilight, hated to be outside after dark. It helped having Dad at his side, because Dad still had that magic power where he could chase the shadows and the monsters under your bed away with a glare.

There was a gas station not far from Stiles’. Derek’s car wasn’t large, but it was flashy. Dad snorted, said, “I’m willing to bet my monthly steak allowance that him being a werewolf somehow enables him to cheat.”

“What?”

“You don’t have a car like that if you don’t enjoy speeding, son. We’ve never caught him. That’s not natural.”

“Derek’s not natural, Dad.”

“What do you think I’m getting at?” Stiles shrugged. “You’re talking now?”

“Sometimes. Dr Sanjev thinks it’s good. She says it helps me put distance. That focusing on the, the good— It’ll help making me forget the bad.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know. It’s— I can’t forget what he is, but he never— He was safe. I was safe with him.”

They weren’t that far from Derek when the SUVs pulled into the gas station and blocked Derek’s car off. Dad frowned. “That doesn’t look good,” he said. Stiles gripped Aela’s leash tightly, then he bent down and scooped her up.

“Hunters,” Stiles said.

“Ah.” Dad rubbed a hand over his face. “Well, come on, then. Time to be a concerned citizen.”

“You’re the sheriff, Dad.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m not a citizen, too, son.”

\--

Stiles fell behind. He couldn’t force himself to walk fast enough to keep up with Dad and he just watched when one of the hunters who’d cornered Derek smashed in the driver’s window. What he could and did do was call up dispatch and give Dad some uniformed, armed back-up.

“What’s going on here?” Dad asked in his best Sheriff voice. Derek looked stiff, tense, face a careful blank canvas.

“Just a misunderstanding,” Argent said.

“Mixing up red and orange roses is a misunderstanding,” Dad said. “Blocking someone in with their cars, exhibiting threatening behaviour and breaking someone’s window with an assault rifle is a criminal offence. I’m going to have to ask you to hand over your weapons.”

“We have permits,” Argent said.

“There’s no permit that says you can discriminatively smash in windows whenever you feel like it. I want to see licences, permits and IDs, gentlemen.”

“Who did you say you were?” Argent asked.

“I didn’t,” Dad said. “I’m Sheriff Stilinski. Now, do you want to do this here or down at the station?”

Stiles seriously loved how badass his dad was. Most kids grew out of hero-worshipping their parents, but Stiles never had because his dad was awesome.

\--

Stiles watched from the inside of the shop at the gas station. He wasn’t sure if Argent and his posse knew he was there or not, but it was as close as he could go.

Aela was a comforting weight in his arms, warm and sleepy as she licked at his fingers with her rough little tongue.

\--

The next day, Derek slid a card over Stiles’ desk. It had a crude drawing of a flower on it and said ‘Thanks!’ Stiles strongly suspected Derek had bought it at the one dollar store down the street from the Sheriff’s Department.

\--

Having lunch with Derek should have been awkward and painful, but it never was. They joined the late two o’clock lunch crowd, went through the diners and kiosks Stiles knew from experience would serve even dirty landscape architects and allow dogs – no way was Stiles going anywhere without Aela.

Aela spent all of ten minutes being wary of Derek the first time they met, but that was it. She nosed at Derek for pets, play-growled when she wanted to tumble rougher than she could with Stiles and worst of all… Aela begged scraps from Derek because she knew Stiles wouldn’t give her any.

“Growing dogs need meat,” Derek said, gruff and awkward.

“Growing dogs need discipline, a stable environment and routines,” Stiles countered. “You’re just a sucker for cute puppies.”

\--

“Why a dog?”

Stiles shrugged. “I wasn’t going to. I needed— I need to take care of someone. I need to be busy, but not too busy. I can’t let myself think.”

“I know,” Derek said.

“Dad found her for me. I mean, it was an accident.”

Derek nodded. He had Aela in his lap, was scratching at her stomach and rubbing her paws between his fingers.

“They were going to put her down. She was at a K-9 training centre. I think she was a stray and she’s too little— Dad thought she’d be good for me. To take care of.”

“She’s a good dog. Smart.”

“Too smart,” Stiles said.

“I don’t believe that.”

Stiles snorted. “Does she have you wrapped around her furry little paws or not, Derek? You—”

“Shut up,” Derek muttered.

\--

They spent the next full moon at Dad’s, Derek and Dad being awkward and weird around each other while Stiles distracted himself with his laptop. Aela was asleep in her portable doggy house, snoring loudly and Stiles tried to forget that he was trapped inside a house with a werewolf on a full moon and that—

Derek sat down next to Stiles. “I’m not going to—”

“I know,” Stiles said quietly.

“I—”

“Shut up, Derek.”

Derek smiled. “Okay.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Allison says Derek Hale is bad news.”

“ _Allison says_?”

Scott looked sheepish. “She says her dad told her to stay away from him.”

“Because they hang out?”

“No, because you do and you’re my best friend,” Scott said. “Mr Argent’s been asking a lot of questions about you.”

Stiles’ heart started to pound.

“About, about what happened? And how you know Derek?”

“Scott—”

“I said it was none of his business, but he got this really strange look on his face like I’d told him exactly what he wanted to hear? He’s kinda scary, Stiles.”

Stiles wanted to tell Scott everything, wanted to tell him to stay away from the Argents at all costs, that they were monsters and freaks who kidnapped innocents and tortured them. He didn’t, because more than that, he wanted to make sure Scott never had reason to be afraid the way Stiles was.

\--

On bad days, Stiles sometimes touched the back of his neck just to make sure that he wasn’t bleeding anymore, that he was healed and free and _alive_ with the scars to show for it.

Most of the time he was ambivalent about his scars, didn’t know if he hated them or not. They were there and they were constant reminders, but they were still just _scars_ ; they hadn’t done anything to him. On bad days, when they reminded him of everything that had happened and how much they had hurt before he finally started to heal, on those days he hated them.

\--

Stiles had a lot of different bad days.

On one of them, he decided to grow his hair out, then on another one he decided he hated it. He went to Derek to complain, because out the few people he was still on a regular talking basis with, Derek was probably the one who’d let him rant his head off without—

Derek never got annoyed at him. Not that Dad did, either, but once upon a time Stiles had gone to Scott with these sort of things and nowadays Stiles figured he probably had that kind of relationship with Derek.

Derek looked at Stiles, then got him to sit in a chair in his kitchen with a mirror in front of him while Derek clinically used his fingers to look at Stiles’ hair.

“Is there something you aren’t telling me?”

“Yes, Stiles,” Derek said. “I’m a secret, undercover hairstylist.”

“I knew it!”

Derek just rolled his eyes. “Look, given the length of your hair, you can pretty much get any shorter hairstyle you want.”

“I didn’t want my neck— Some days I can’t deal with it. The stares. Then Argent— I don’t know if he’s seen. If he knows, if he thinks I’m—”

“Okay,” Derek said. “Can I touch your neck?”

Stiles tensed, then nodded. “Not a lot,” he said.

“You know the drill; hit me where it hurts.”

“You know, one day I might actually do it. Just go for the nuts. You won’t even see it coming, it’ll be so out of the blue.”

“I’m counting on it,” Derek said.

Stiles rolled his eyes, but he kept talking, kept the words coming as Derek tugged and combed his hair, as Derek used his hands and fingers to explain how he wanted to cut Stiles’ hair, occasionally interjecting between Stiles’ rambles and rants.

Stiles was pretty sure they both knew that Stiles was talking to keep from panicking at having someone at his back and that Derek was letting him, even though Stiles could see Derek perfectly fine via the mirror – like he’d been forced to watch via the camera—

Derek touched him lightly on the jaw. “Shorter on the sides, but not buzzed.”

“Yeah, yeah, I— Okay.”

“If you’re set on that mowhawk, I can do it.”

Stiles bit his lip. “I’m not a teenager anymore.”

“So?”

Stiles nodded. “Okay, yeah. Rock on, Derek.”

\--

“Jokes aside,” Derek said later when Stiles was busy running his hands through his newly shorn hair, liking the way it bristled against his palms. Derek was good, had cut only what he said he would and Stiles had a tiny dinosaur ridge of a mowhawk for the first time in his life. The hair on the sides of his head was sorter, but not the way it’d been back in his buzzcut glory days. His neck was a little more exposed, a little more visible, but his hair looked awesome.

Also, high-necked shirts existed for a reason.

“What?”

Derek rolled his eyes. “I said, do you know how to fight? I know you can handle a gun, but—”

“Dad and I have a compromise. If I complete the yearly self-defence training at the station, then I turn a blind eye if he occasionally indulges in some of the food groups he shouldn’t eat.”

Derek nodded. He was sitting in a chair by Stiles’ kitchen table. He said, “If you want, I can help you practice.”

“I kick and bite and scream.”

“I could take you into the woods. No one would ever hear you.”

Stiles froze, hand hovering over on button on the Vacuum.

Derek winced. “Too soon?”

Stiles snorted, then shook his head. “You’re a prize, man.” After a pause, he added, “Don’t ever joke about that, though.”

“Okay.”

“Good.”

“I’m not good with words.”

“Yeah, I got that, Derek.”

\--

Stiles and Derek started to have dinners with Dad on full moons because they wanted to lie low, wanted to give Argent and his posse of hunters a reason to stay away from them. Stiles didn’t count on Dad insisting that Stiles _and Derek_ should come over on the regular, though. Like, Dad for real invited Derek over for lunch that Saturday via Stiles.

\--

It was weird how not weird it was.

Dad kept the conversation flowing, dropping seemingly innocent little remarks until he had the whole story about the Argents.

Stiles knew Dad was a good cop, but he was still left feeling a lot confused at the ease with which Dad could weasel out good information. It helped that Derek had a similar nonplussed expression on his face.

\--

Derek taught Aela to walk on two legs. Stiles didn’t ask how, just smiled when Derek issued the command and watched as Aela used Derek’s legs to get in the right position, then wobbled off for a few steps before neatly landing on four paws again. Tail wagging, tongue sticking out of her mouth, Aela rushed over to Derek for praise and treats.

She was a clever dog.

“I can’t believe you did that.”

Derek didn’t pretend to look sheepish, just shrugged and smiled. “She’s a good dog, takes to everything so quickly.”

“I know,” Stiles said and he didn’t bother not to sound like a stupid proud sap over his dog.

“Does it help?”

“It helps me.”

Derek nodded. “I don’t think I could do a dog. I’m not home enough.”

“We could—”

“Stiles?”

Stiles felt his heart pound. “We could share. A little.”

“Just a little?”

“Like we are. She’s still mine, but you can— You can play, too.”

“Okay,” Derek said, a small but pleased smile on his lips. “Thanks.”

\--

The day after that someone hit Stiles over the head as he left work.

\--

Stiles woke with a pounding headache, a sack over his head, feeling disoriented and sick to his stomach because he’d been here, he’d done this, and oh my god, he was chained to a fucking fence and he couldn’t move.

“It’s not healing,” someone said.

“I noticed that,” a woman snapped back. “Where did you get the intel that it’s a werewolf?”

“I didn’t,” a third voice said. He was a lot closer and Stiles couldn’t help but flinch and try to get away. “Rumour. Also this.” A hand grabbed Stiles head, turned it roughly to the side.

Stiles— He blacked out.

\--

He came to when someone threw a bucket of water in his face.

“I didn’t grab you so you could sleep,” the woman said.

Stiles didn’t say anything.

“Aw, the silent treatment, huh? How about if I do this—”

Stiles lost consciousness this time, because it turned out he didn’t stand a chance against being electrocuted with a cattle prod.

\--

The time after that, Stiles woke to his Dad breaking the door down. He wasn’t alone, had several deputies with him, but all Stiles cared about was that Dad was here.

\--

Derek came to see him the next day. Rang the doorbell, listened to Aela’s bark of warning, then waited until Stiles made it to the door.

He waited for the five minutes it took Stiles to work up the courage to unlock the door, to open it.

When Stiles finally managed that, he was greeted with Derek’s wince.

“Thanks, Prince Charming.”

“You look horrible.”

“I feel peachy,” Stiles said, deadpan, maybe a little annoyed. “Getting whacked over the back of my head and then tortured in a creepy-ass dungeon under the husk of your burnt out house really makes me feel super about myself.”

Derek looked shocked. “I didn’t—”

“What?”

“I didn’t know. I’m—”

“Wait, why are you here?”

“You didn’t show up for lunch,” Derek said.

“Oh.”

“I tried calling, but—”

“I turned it off.”

“Can I come in?”

Stiles hesitated for less than a second. “Just, I know there’s no one here but me because otherwise Aela’d tell me, but—”

“I’ll check,” Derek said, then he put a hand on the side of Stiles’ head that wasn’t a gigantic bruise. “Are you—?”

“Biggest fucking relapse in the history of ever I didn’t need,” Stiles said, bitter. “I don’t—” Stiles shook his head, stopped talking.

“There’s no one else here,” Derek said. “Aela’s heart is steady and yours is too fast.”

“That’s because I’m terrified all over again!” Stiles shouted. “I hate it! I hate that I’m fucked up but I hate them ever more for just knocking me out on a fucking rumour that I’d be a werewolf because of a fucking scar that I hate so much right now.”

\--

They played board games all day and long into the night, ate soup when Stiles could stomach food at all and drank too much tea. When Aela needed her walks, Derek took the leash and Stiles kept close to Derek’s side. Once an hour, a patrol car drove by and the one time Derek saw/smelled a hunter outside, Stiles called Dad immediately.

The hunters didn’t come back after that.

\--

The next day, Stiles stalked Derek while he worked on the public flowerbeds in the park and wondered when he started to feel safe around Derek.

Derek Hale, the alpha werewolf of Beacon Hills.

Stiles hated werewolves after— After. He hated them. He probably hated hunters more, but he didn’t understand how he could feel safe around someone whose second nature scared him so much. He guessed maybe it had something to do with the fact that all Derek ever did was save and protect him.

“They want to know who my pack is,” Derek said.

“What?”

“Werewolves aren’t usually alone. We have packs and family. They think I have a beta or more, that I turned someone who lost control. That’s why— I think that’s why they grabbed you.”

“I hate hunters,” Stiles said.

Derek looked at Stiles over his shoulder. “Most of my kind do.”

“I hate werewolves, too.”

Derek rolled his eyes. “You hate omegas, Stiles.”

“Whatever.” Stiles sniffed. “Just because I— Just because you’re safe doesn’t mean you get a free pass or something, you know.”

“Good to know,” Derek said.

\--

Stiles told Dad everything he could about who’d hit him over the head and electrocuted him. He could pin them down if he heard their voices again, but he’d been blindfolded pretty much the whole time.

Dad nodded, said it was good, and hugged him for as long as Stiles was comfortable. It wasn’t as long as it had been but it was getting better.

\--

Lydia came back a couple of months after Scott. Stiles really hadn’t expected that. He’d expected her to take the world by storm, to win prizes and awards. But she came back, two PhDs and a research position at MIT behind her.

They were Facebook friends, okay? Stiles kept up to date on a lot of people that way, never mind that he only used Facebook for game stats, nerdery and geekery – other people had a different way of using that site. Also, Lydia Martin was ruthless at strategy games and Stiles loved having her on his team.

Anyway, Stiles found out via her Facebook that she’d bought a condo in a pricey downtown area of Beacon Hills, but he didn’t really think much about it because there was— He was busy, okay? He had to keep surviving, to dare take that one gigantic step outside the door on a semi-daily basis – the weekends were the worst, because he didn’t have to go to work, but Aela needed her walk, and, yeah. The weekends were the hardest.

So, no, Stiles was in no way expecting Lydia Martin to come knocking on his door. He… He wasn’t prepared. It was a Sunday, which meant it was game day and Derek was lounging in his kitchen. They were halfway through a lazy round of Scrabble when the doorbell rang. Aela barked once, loud and sharp.

Stiles startled, then glared accusingly at Derek. “You,” he started.

“Don’t look at me,” Derek said, but he was straightening up from the slouch he’d had going for the past thirty minutes.

“You’re the one with the ears and the nose.”

Derek glared. “They rang the doorbell.”

“Fine,” Stiles said, heart thumping. “But you’re coming.”

The doorbell rang again and Aela barked. Stiles fretted in front of the door until Derek reached around Stiles to open it. Stiles didn’t waste any time at all in picking his dog up and scrambling to hide behind Derek’s bulk.

“You’re not Stiles,” Lydia said when Derek had finally unlocked all the locks and slid the deadbolt to the side.

“No,” Derek said. “I’m not.”

“Lydia?” Stiles asked. “What are you doing here?”

“Visiting an old friend. Are you going to invite me in?”

“Stiles?” Derek asked.

Stiles hesitated. He had Aela in his arms, was half-hiding behind Derek and—

“Stiles?” Lydia prompted, arching an eyebrow.

“Okay,” Stiles said at length. “You can come in, Lydia.”

\--

Lydia came in. She gave him an odd look, the slightest hint of a frown between her perfect eyebrows. Stiles wondered if there was always going to be a small part of him that was in awe of her, at her brilliance and her beauty.

“You fell off the face of the earth,” Lydia said, removing her coat. “Well, the cyber world, anyway.”

Stiles could tell the exact moment Lydia got a good look at him, because she stopped talking. “Hi, Lydia,” he said, instead.

“What—”

“No,” Stiles said, keeping his gaze on Aela, at her warm eyes and her adorable floppy puppy ears and soft little paws. “We’re playing Scrabble if you want to— We can play Scrabble.”

\--

They played Scrabble. Derek didn’t talk much and Lydia stuck to innocuous comments and easy chatter, giving a brief and summarised account of what she’d been up to lately. That, and her new job that was waiting for her in a couple of weeks at CalTech. Stiles would be jealous if he wasn’t so proud and happy for her.

“Didn’t I say you’d be great?”

Lydia smirked. “As if I didn’t already know.”

“True,” Stiles agreed.

\--

Lydia lingered that day. She lingered, and Derek hung back.

“He won’t leave until I go, will he,” Lydia said.

“No, he won’t,” Stiles agreed. “Derek is a good friend.”

“I thought I was a good friend.”

“You are. You are, Lydia. It’s just…”

“What?”

“You were a name on a screen for so long. It wasn’t that I forgot that you were real, I just never thought… I didn’t think you’d come back.”

“Well, I did. You disappeared for months, Stiles, and when you finally came back you refused to chat and turned everything off. I was worried. What happened, Stiles?”

Stiles shook his head. He was wringing his hands, jittery and jumpy. He wasn’t sure he wanted her to know because his friendship with Scott was weird these days and he couldn’t help but think that it was his fault that because Stiles wasn’t the same anymore.

He and Scott had never been weird before, not even when Stiles came out as bisexual when they were thirteen and Stiles chose to do it at night during one of their sleepovers. When they were in the same bed together.

“Is it okay if I can’t say?”

Lydia looked concerned, looked worried and hesitant. “Stiles?” she asked. “What happened?”

“I was kidnapped.” Stiles bit the inside of his cheek. “Derek. Derek was, too.”

\--

The next day after work, Chris Argent was waiting for him outside the personnel entrance. Aela barked up a storm, picking up on Stiles’ panic and fear immediately. Stiles scooped her into his arms, backed up to the wall and glared. He glared because there wasn’t anything else he could do; he’d start screaming or slip into that black oblivion if he tried to think too much.

“Mr Stilinski,” Argent started.

“Stay away from me,” Stiles said.

Argent looked pained. “I just wanted—”

“I said back the fuck off.”

“You need to—”

“I don’t need to do anything,” Stiles snapped. “Back off or I call my dad.”

“I’m not threatening you.”

Stiles glared. “Let me think: who was it who hit me over the head right where you’re standing about a week ago?”

This time, Argent glared back. “I had nothing to do with that.”

“That’s bullshit.  It’s always you and your merry band of sycophants.”

“You’ve got this all wrong,” Argent said and he looked frustrated. “I’m here to protect you.”

Stiles laughed. It was ugly and crude and stuck to Stiles’ throat. “ _Derek_ protects people. You just fuck us up.”

\--

It wasn’t like Stiles didn’t know that Derek and Dad worked together on the dead bodies. The first one looked like a typical animal attack, but the second had been cut in two by a sharp object, possibly a sword. Derek said that it was a hunter thing, to cut werewolves in half to make sure they couldn’t heal, to make sure they were dead.

Stiles thought it sounded barbaric.

\--

Lydia took him out for coffee. They stayed at the coffee shop for all of five minutes before the sensation of being crowded started to get to Stiles, so they ended up going back to his place with their orders. She looked him over, eyes lingering on the healing bruises covering his face, on the scars on his body. She said, “If you need me to destroy someone, I will.”

Stiles shook his head, said, “They’re already dead.” Lydia looked sharply at him. Stiles started, shaking his head. “I mean—”

“Stiles. You know I would help you hide a body and plan the perfect murder.” Lydia was deathly serious. “We both know my moral compass is a little skewed.”

“They locked people in with me. I was in a room with a screen and a camera and they locked me in with people— They threw in Derek last. He got us out. I helped, but he did a lot of the, the heavy lifting.” Stiles wet his lips, said, “I lost a lot of weight. I’m in therapy. Sometimes I can’t go outside without freaking out.”

“People?” Lydia asked. Stiles nodded and looked away. “People don’t have the kind of teeth—”

“Don’t.”

“Stiles—”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Not— Is that okay?”

Lydia made a noise, nodded even as she looked away and dabbed at her make-up, at her barely smudged eyeliner. “Do you still have that online version of Skyrim?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to play?”

Stiles nodded. “Do you know what I miss most about not being all fucked up?”

Lydia shook her head. “No.”

“I miss being able to do stuff, to play whatever games I fucking feel like just because I want to, you know? But I can’t, because everything’s a fucking trigger and I can’t even see a movie without flipping out over something.”

“You can’t play videogames?”

“I can’t play the ones I miss the most,” Stiles said. “Like the online version of Skyrim I used to kick ass at.”

\--

“Tell me about Derek,” Lydia said later that day.

“I think we’re friends,” Stile said. “We hang out, eat lunch. He plays board games with me no one else will touch.”

“And?”

“And, what?”

Lydia looked impatient. “Is that all?”

“Did you miss the part where we were kidnapped together?”

“No, Stiles. Did you miss the part where I’m neither blind nor stupid?”

Stiles' heart started to pound. He wound his fingers together, thought not for the first time that he ought to pick up a trade or a craft he could do with his hands. Maybe crocheting. He could totally do that, make little hats and scarves, force Derek to wear them.

“Did you miss the part where I was missing for months because I was kidnapped by freaks and monsters? I didn’t talk with him for months, Lydia. I couldn’t even look him in the eye when he came into the library.”

“So what changed?”

Stiles shrugged. “Scott came back. Can we— Could we not talk about this? I don’t want a panic attack.”

\--

Stiles was with Derek when he met Kate Argent face to face for the first time. It meant he had someone to grab onto when he heard her voice, someone who was just as tense and freaked out as Stiles felt – even if Stiles only picked up on it because Derek was literally the only thing keeping him standing. Derek’s face was ashen, lips pinched tight, and the grip he had on Stiles was borderline painful.

Stiles felt like maybe that was okay, all things considered.


	5. Chapter 5

“That’s Kate,” Derek bit out. “Kate Argent.”

“That’s her. Oh my god, that’s her,” Stiles said, breaths hitching in his throat, catching in his chest, because he knew that voice. Going by how smug Kate looked, she knew it, too. It was just perfect, because they were in the fresh produce aisle and Derek had been measuring out how many tomatoes they’d need for a soup because Dad was coming for lunch tomorrow and Derek had offered to cook.

Stiles didn’t think he’d ever be able to turn Derek’s cooking down. It wasn’t that Derek was an exceptional cook or anything, but he was good at comfort foods and knew his basics. He used spices differently than Stiles, so that was probably why Derek’s food felt more exotic even though it was still the same pasta and the same sauce.

Dad was frowning at Stiles, at Kate Argent and, no, Dad wasn’t stupid, was already heading over. Small town sheriffs never really went off duty, so it wasn’t that weird that even though Dad was buying groceries, was dressed in civilian clothes because he had the day off, he was still _Sheriff_ , still had his badge. He probably had a gun on his ankle and a pair of handcuffs or zip ties in a pocket somewhere.

But, yeah. Food. Supermarket. Kate Argent.

Sometimes, Stiles fucking loved that Dad had taken up a weird habit of semi-stalking Stiles.

Like, yeah, Derek had a good hold on him, keeping him on his feet, but it was Dad who stepped in front of them to glare Kate down.

“I don’t think we’ve been introduced,” she said, a mix between a smirk and a smile on her face as she stretched her hand out to Dad. “I’m Kate Argent. Used to be pretty tight with Derek over there.”

“Is that a fact?”

“You could say that.” Kate ran her eyes over Dad. “You must be—”

“Stiles’ father. Sheriff Stilinski.”

One of Kate’s eyebrows shot up. “Sheriff, right.”

Dad nodded, then handed his half-full basket of forbidden items to Derek. Derek took it more out of reflex than anything, because he— He looked shocked, like Stiles felt when he needed to pick up Aela just to have something to ground him in the present and he was so tense. Stiles could feel it because there was only two things keeping him standing right now: one of them was the white-knuckled grip he had on Derek’s arm. The other one was the matching hold Derek had on him.

“I think you better come with me to the station and answer some questions, Ms Argent.”

Kate crossed her arms over her chest and frowned. “Excuse me?”

“We have reason to believe you’ve been involved some recent criminal activities,” Dad said, calm as anything. “A person matching your description has been implicated in a number of different ongoing investigations over the years. Now, are you going to come quietly or do I need to arrest you?”

\--

Kate went along quietly. Stiles didn’t pretend not to be disappointed.

She did call her brother, though, complaining loud and angrily to anyone who cared to listen.

Stiles listened.

\--

“Stiles,” Derek said.

“What?”

“What did your dad mean when he said Kate’d been involved with more than one crime?”

Stiles shrugged. He had Aela in his lap, was sitting on his couch next to Derek, close enough that Derek’s supernatural werewolf heat bled into him, slowly warming him up. “I’m not a cop.”

“He’s your dad.”

“He only tells me things sometimes. I used to read his reports and stuff when I was a teenager, but I kind of realised I was putting him in a difficult position legally so I stopped. Why?”

“He said Kate’s name had come up more than once.”

“She’s a freak, a monster. I’m not surprised. Can we talk about something else?”

\--

Dad came for lunch the next day. Derek served them, then sat down next to Stiles. Dad didn’t say anything about Kate, about what had happened yesterday. He did ask if Stiles was okay, though, then questioned Derek about his job.

All in all, the lunch was fairly painless. It wasn’t as awkward as it had been the first time they all sat down together, and maybe Dad didn’t know Derek in relation to Stiles, but they did know each other. Stiles sometimes forgot, but Dad had known about werewolves and the supernatural side to everyday life in Beacon Hills before Stiles. Derek was the one who helped him with those cases, who pointed out when the culprit wasn’t human.

\--

Stiles was at the station when Chris Argent finally cornered him. Not that there was much cornering involved, because Stiles was sitting in the waiting room outside Dad’s office, reading articles on his phone when Chris sat down in the next chair over.

Stiles noticed that someone had sat down, of course he did, but he felt so ridiculously upbeat about the fact that he hadn’t checked to see who it was that he didn’t notice _who it was_. So when Argent said, “Mr Stilinski,” Stiles started and almost dropped his phone.

“Uh, hi,” Stiles said, then pointedly looked back at his phone. At the black screen of his phone.

“Do you know why I’m here?”

Stiles didn’t say anything.

“Mr Stilinski.”

“I don’t care.”

“You had my sister arrested.”

“She had herself arrested,” Stiles snapped. “It’s not my fault she’s a monster.”

“She’s human.”

“I wasn’t talking about her species,” Stiles said. “I said she was a monster.”

Argent looked sharply at him. “What—”

“You shouldn’t even be talking to me. It’s a conflict of interest.”

“I’m interested in justice.”

“And murder,” Stiles added. “You’re a hunter; it’s what you do.”

“Is that what Derek told you?”

Stiles glared at Argent. “It’s what _hunters_ taught me. You murder, torture and destroy innocents. That’s what you do.”

“We maintain balance—”

“By killing. Do you know what happens when you kill, Argent? People get hurt! Innocent people who have nothing to do with your fucked up ideals get hurt and you _don’t care_.”

Argent was stiff, looked angry and ready to tear Stiles a new one. So Stiles said, “Who do you think gave me this bruise, huh? _Derek_? you think _my dad_ would leave _Derek_ alone if he thought even for a second that he was a bad influence?”

“He’s a werewolf,” Argent said.

Stiles gestured at Argent, at the world around them. “He’s a person first,” he said, a thread of exasperation in his tone. “If you weren’t so hung up on it, you’d have no clue there’s more to him than meets the eye and you know it. You have _nothing_ on him that pins him as anything but human. You know, I don’t even get why you’re here. What are you even hunting, man?”

“Allison—”

“Is a grown woman. If you can’t let her go, you have a problem. I’m not stupid; you came here for something else.”

Argent didn’t say anything. Instead, he turned to look at Stiles. He tried not to move, to not let Argent’s gaze get to him, but he knew he couldn’t sit still.

“Did you know a wolf will bite its mate during copulation to—”

Stiles got up and walked away. He didn’t run, which was one of his only points of pride, but he got up and he walked away.

The other point was that he didn’t punch Argent in the face.

He didn’t stop until he was home, until he could curl up on his couch with Aela.

\--

Dad called later, asked if Stiles could swing by the station tomorrow to wrap up the investigation on Kate. There were some questions that needed answering, some forms that needed signing. Small stuff. He didn’t say anything about the fact that Stiles had been at the station earlier that day for that exact purpose, didn’t ask why he’d left or if he’d seen Argent there.

Stiles kind of loved his dad a lot for never asking stupid questions.

\--

The next day, Stiles had lunch with Lydia after work.

The day after that, the full moon happened and Derek showed up to take him out for dinner. They went to an Italian restaurant and Stiles stayed out after dark for the first time in months. They were just starting on the main course when Scott, Allison and her parents walked inside. Stiles dropped his fork with a loud clatter, was about to upend his glass because his hands were shaking out of control, but Derek caught it before it could fall and pressed their feet together under the table, and the reminder that he wasn’t alone bolstered him through the rest of the meal.

Stiles jiggled his leg, drummed his fingers on the table, worried about his dad and Aela. Derek just looked at him, didn’t say a word, and pressed their legs tighter together.

\--

“Do you know what I miss most?” Stiles asked when Derek was giving him a ride home.

“Peace of mind?” Derek raised his eyebrows, met Stiles’ gaze via the rear view mirror.

Stiles rolled his eyes. “No, I miss hugs. I loved to cuddle, I was a total slut for it. I’d hug Dad every time I saw him. I never dated that much because I was too geek for that school, but I’d hang out at Jungle with all the Drag Queens. They loved me, used me as their mascot. They’d pull me in, keep me in their midst. Every time I left, I was O.D.-ing on hugs, I swear.”

“I would curl up with my sisters. Our parents had a big bed, and we’d shift just enough to let the wolf out.”

“Puppy piles? Really, Derek?”

Derek shrugged. “Scent is important to werewolves. I can’t explain it, it’s instinct almost. Comfort. It’s gotten more pronounced since I became an alpha.”

“What, you get crippled with cravings of rubbing yourself all over your stuff?”

Derek’s ears turned pink. “It’s not like that. It’s just relaxing. I…”

“What?”

“You’re pack, Stiles. I like it when we smell like each other. It’s reassuring. Helps me remember I’m not alone.”

Stiles bit his lip. “That sounds freaky. Is it freaky? I don’t want to—”

“It’s not freaky.” Derek rolled his eyes. “It’s like family.”

“You think we’re family?”

“I think you’re the closest to it I have left.”

“Oh,” Stiles said, his heart was pounding like mad. “I—”

“You don’t— You don’t have to say anything.”

“I don’t care that you’re a werewolf,” Stiles blurted. “I don’t care that you could rip me apart without breaking a sweat. I mean, I’m not saying I think you’d do it, I’m saying you’re physically strong enough— I haven’t been afraid of you in a long time. Maybe I should be, but—

“Chris and Kate Argent scare me more. I’m getting better, but I’m starting to realise I won’t ever be okay again, I won’t be like I was before and I’m getting to a point where I can almost be okay with that.”

Derek reached out for Stiles’ hand. Stiles took it, squeezed their fingers together tight and snug.

“You help me so much every day, Derek. I never thank you, just depend on you more and more, and that’s scary, you know, because what if I can’t learn to be okay without you? What if I always need you to be— I was surviving before we started to talk. I came that far on my own, but now… What if I can’t do it without you?”

“Then you do it with me,” Derek said. “I’m not going anywhere, Stiles.

\--

Derek didn’t go anywhere.

Stiles didn’t go anywhere, either. He went to work Monday through Friday, he walked his dog, met up with Dad when his schedule allowed, and Derek was always there, in the periphery or directly involved. Sometimes, he had lunch with Lydia or met up with Scott for old times’ sake.

Eventually, Argent stopped stalking Stiles. He wasn’t sure if it was because Dad made an official arrest, pinning Kate and two others for the kidnapping and beating of Stiles, for setting a fire that killed almost a whole family well over a decade ago.

Derek didn’t say anything when Dad told him, just nodded and closed himself off. Stiles found him later, curled up under Stiles’ bed as the largest fucking wolf he’d ever seen in his life.

“I thought you said you couldn’t do that,” Stiles said, just a little panicked, because that was a huge fucking wolf in his bedroom. Like, Stiles was within touching distance of a wolf that could eat him alive without even breaking a sweat. Okay, so the wolf was a werewolf, really, because it was too huge by far to be anything close to natural and this was probably the first time he’d seen a shifted werewolf that didn’t look like a monster reject from Buffy.

Aela perked up, though, ears pointing up and tail wagging furiously as she dashed over to Derek. Well, Stiles assumed it was Derek, because if it wasn’t then Stiles had a problem of the “huge predator in my bedroom” variety. Aela sniffed at Derek, licked at his muzzle then tried to cuddle up to Derek’s bulk.

Derek huffed, made a chuffing sound and opened his mouth to pick Aela up by the scruff of her neck. Aela gave up a token yip of protest, then relaxed as Derek crawled out from under the bed and headed for the living room and the couch by proxy.

Stiles felt pretty pleased that Derek remembered the rule about no dog hair in the bed. Wolf hair, whatever.

Stiles kept clear of the couch and every time he looked over, Derek was staring at him with baleful and sad eyes.

“Don’t give me that dirty diaper look,” Stiles said. “I think I’m doing pretty great at the epic freak out I’m currently not having considering the fact I have a motherfucking wolf the size of Texas on my couch. You don’t get to beg for snuggles and cuddles, Derek.”

\--

Stiles consented to sitting on the floor in front of the couch, Derek’s head heavy on his shoulder.

\--

With Kate behind bars – or at least in holding, waiting for the legal system to catch up and get its law on, Stiles was left feeling adrift, like he didn’t know how to settle. Before her, before hunters and Argents in Beacon Hills, Stiles had been well on his way to becoming a semi-functioning citizen. He’d been almost okay.

He hadn’t settled until he’d been forced to spend more time with Derek, but he’d been getting there. Slowly, one inch at a time. Recently, he started to wonder if maybe he’d sleep easier, _live_ easier, if he knew why—

If he knew why he’d been taken. Why those monsters calling themselves human had been kidnapping people like Stiles. There was no way of knowing how many had died, how many others had been treated like Stiles had been.

Even now, Stiles couldn’t make himself count the days and the weeks and the months that had accumulated while he slowly wasted away in a windowless room. He thought maybe he needed to acknowledge it, that maybe he just needed to say “I was kidnapped” and add the actual amount of time.

Maybe it would be easier if he knew, Stiles thought, lying in bed late at night. Awake, because he couldn’t sleep, because he had nightmares. Sometimes he had vivid flash backs or panic attacks. He wanted to sleep the way he used to, he wanted to be over everything, wanted to be fine and good again.

He knew he wouldn’t be; he couldn’t. He wasn’t the same person anymore, changed and different. It didn’t have to be bad, though. He’d be more okay with not being the same as before if he was fine.

\--

The next time Derek came over, Stiles told himself he’d ask. Maybe Derek had no idea, maybe he only had a hunch. Stiles thought that maybe if he knew one way or the other, he could relax a little more and start letting go.

\--

Stiles fidgeted for a long time. He vacuumed the floor, dusted the shelves and wiped down the windows. Derek was on the couch, reading a book from Stiles’ shelves while Stiles hemmed and hawed, brushed Aela’s fur out, then had to vacuum again because he forgot to put a protective sheet on the floor.

Eventually, when he couldn’t distract himself any long, he sat down next to Derek and wrapped a trembling hand around Derek’s arm. Derek didn’t say anything, just put the book down and turned to face Stiles.

“I’m ready,” Stiles said.

“Okay. I’m listening.”

Stiles sort of grinned. “You’re always listening. I like that about you.” Derek lifted a shoulder, then Stiles said, “The hunters. The ones that—” Derek nodded and one of his hands came up to rest feather-light against Stiles’, so he went on, “Why— Do you know why?”

Derek shook his head. “I remember Mom telling me that hunters had a code, that they were our shadows in the night. I didn’t know they were something to be afraid of until they killed my family. Mom always said they were supposed to be like a supernatural version of cops. But…”

“But they’re too fucking full of themselves and human supremacy.”

“Something like that.”

“Do you think the Argents—?”

“Hunters like the Argents see themselves above vendettas and kidnappings.”

“Except for Kate.”

Derek nodded. He said, “They won’t know, and even if they did, they’d never tell us because according to them hunters sort their own problems out. If you ask the Argents, hunters like the ones who took us doesn’t even exist.”

“They don’t,” Stiles said. “We killed them all.”

\--

Maybe Derek hadn’t shed light on anything, but talking to him still made Stiles feel lighter, easier. It wasn’t that the conversation had solved everything, because it hadn’t, but Stiles had still talked.

Talking helped, like his therapist was so fond of pointing out.

\--

Stiles didn’t know how much later it was when Derek went in to the bathroom, then came back out as a wolf.

“We still need to talk about that,” Stiles said. “It’s freaky. How can you even—”

Derek chuffed, grabbed Stiles’ shirt with his teeth and started dragging him in the direction of the couch.

“Hey,” Stiles protested. Derek stopped, looked up at him with familiar eyes. They looked kinder like this and Stiles couldn’t stop himself from reaching out, from tracing the soft fur around them. “I don’t know what to do with you like this, Derek.”

Derek huffed and moved his head so he could lick at Stiles’ fingers.

“I mean, you’re a werewolf, a wolf. I used to be terrified of that, you know? I still don’t like it in general, but when it’s you… It’s okay if it’s you, I think. To be honest, I don’t think I could— I think I’d freak pretty bad if you did the, the other shift. With the face and the— Yeah, no, I’d probably hurt myself trying to get away.”

Derek moved so he was nosing Stiles’ hip instead, then started pushing again. They wound up on the couch, Aela delighted to be part of it all.

“We’re pack, huh,” Stiles said, sacked out on the couch. He had Derek partway on top of him, hands buried in the scruff of the wolf’s neck. Aela was there, a vibrating ball of bliss as Derek groomed her with his tongue. It was pretty perfect, Stiles had to admit.

Pretty damn perfect.

\--fin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it, fic is over and done with.
> 
> Feel free to come poke at me over on [tumblr](saandrae.tumblr.com). I mostly reblog shit, to be honest.

**Author's Note:**

> There are heavy allusions to trauma and some pretty serious and sever assault. Whether that assault is sexual in nature or not up to the reader. I do feel it's my duty to offer up a warning, though. Let me know if you need a more thorough one.
> 
> \--
> 
> On an unrelated note: I need a beta for my Teen Wolf bigbang fic. It's 42k words long and due soon. Very soon. Anyone feel like helping me out?


End file.
